To Calm the Wild Beast
by Crysania
Summary: Tumblr prompt: After escaping Zelena's cage, Rumpelstiltskin ends up in his shop and is soon found by Belle. Finding him confused and panicked, she kisses him to calm him down. Eventually, Belle finds out that she needs to regularly kiss him to bring him back to sanity. (Written post 3x14)


The moment she walks into the shop, Belle knows _something_ is off. She's not sure how she knows, exactly. Everything seems to be in order, every lovingly-dusted item still in its proper place on the shelves. But there's an air about the place, as if things have been disturbed without actually being disturbed. And she's not sure what leaves the hair on the back of her neck standing on end…the fact that nothing in the shop is out of place or the fact that she senses _something wrong_ despite everything looking to be in order.

"Hello?" The word falls into the silence and for a moment there is no response.

But then she hears a whimper coming from somewhere in the back of the shop. It's muffled, but it's a clear cry for help. She knows if she hesitates, because this is just the kind of situation that Belle finds herself having be rescued from, she would never go into the back of the shop. And so she rushes to the back, barely giving it a thought.

She stops just inside, just past the curtains.

There's nothing there.

All is silence. "Is someone back here?" She hates the way her voice sounds, alone in this room. Hesitant, a little bit frightened, afraid someone will jump out and take her down…again. She's had too many bad experiences with pirates, with evil queens and witches, for her to be completely comfortable alone these days.

The whimper comes again. And this time she's sure it's human. It's coming from someone hidden behind the bed. Someone scared, alone. More scared than she is, if she can judge by the sound of pain coming from whomever it is.

She walks slowly, her heels clicking on the wooden floor of the back room, loud in the silence that is only broken by the occasional whimpering of whomever hiding on the other side of the bed. As she rounds the corner, she sees him there. Matted hair, clothes disheveled, his face hidden beneath arms that are held over his head as if to protect him from some unseen foe.

Belle kneels next to the prone man and reaches out a hand, touches his shoulder.

He jerks away from her with a hiss, skitters away on bent legs and arms, as if he's not quite human.

And then he turns to look at her, eyes wide behind the long hair that hangs over his narrow face, lips set in a grim line.

Belle feels something pierce her heart. She cannot breathe for a moment, her throat closed up, her eyes as wide as the man's she is facing. Her hand goes to her heart, forms a fist, pounds her chest quickly, trying to gain back the feeling she has just lost. It's as if all the air has been sucked right out of the room and she's left floundering, floating in a space that she once wholly occupied. She is _not there_. And yet there. All at the same time.

Then she blinks. The feeling returns, comes rushing back on a painful gasp. His name is wrenched from her lips. "Rumple?"

He is alive. Somehow. Sitting there in front of her in the pawnshop with trepidation and anxiety in every line of his body. She reaches out a hand toward him and he flinches back again.

She repeats his name, crawling a little closer to him. He's like a skittish dog and Belle remembers how to get them to come to her. She turns her face away from him, does not meet his eyes, curves her body so that she's not facing him head on, and creeps a little closer yet.

He does not move, hands held protectively out in front of him. It's better than his nervous moving away from her so Belle will take it. "Rumple." She whispers his name, soft-voiced, still turned away. "It's me…Belle."

He sounds out the single syllable of her name, the word sounding almost foreign from his lips. His voice is rusty, as if he hasn't spoken in a very long time and Belle wonders where he's been, how he ended up like this. How he's _alive_.

"You're alive." She is still speaking in a whisper, too afraid to startle him. He nods, just once, and she closes the space between them, wraps her small hand around one of his.

He is warm and real and as his hand wraps weakly around hers, she finds herself almost giddy with relief. Her heart has been so heavy, so dead. She's been so closed off, holing herself up in his pawnshop, the library, the home that should have been theirs, hiding away from those she considered friends and those who might be enemies. She knows a year has passed. This is what was explained soon after waking up in Storybrooke, but the last year is gone and her memories of her loss are fresh and real.

She leans toward him and he doesn't move away this time. His eyes widen and when she moves closer, so close, just scant inches from his face, they slam shut. Belle takes that as an invitation and crosses the threshold, touches her lips softly to his. It feels like yesterday that she last kissed him and yet it feels like it's been centuries, the feel of his lips against hers both a warm comfort and a distant memory.

His hands come up to cup her face and as she ends the kiss and her eyes open, she smiles.

He blinks once…twice. "Belle?" This time the word is stronger, more his own voice, less the scared animal's it was a moment ago.

Her smile widens. "Yes…Rumple. It's me." She grips his hands harder as their eyes meet, shifting to pull him closer to her.

He pulls back at the last moment, his hand releasing hers as he skitters back away from her. His hands are raised again, his eyes wide. "Rumple, it's _me_." She leans closer to him and watches as his eyes shut and he turns away, shaking his head violently.

"No…please…"

The tone of his voice lances through her heart. "I won't let you fall to this," she murmurs and grasps his face in her hands. He tries to back away, but her hold is firm. Her lips, when they touch his, are firmer as well. He _will not _fall to this, not if Belle can stop it. Not if she can reclaim him, bring him back to himself.

When she finally pulls back his eyes are open, clearer than they have been. He murmurs her name, his eyebrows drawing low over his eyes. "What's happening?"

"Do you know who you are?" Belle watches him, hopeful.

He nods slowly and meets her eyes. For a moment they're completely clear, but then she begins to see the edges clouding again, the madness creeping from the outside in. His voice, when he speaks again, is a mere whisper. "Kiss me again…I think it's working."


End file.
